The Extrufood cooking extruder is a twin screw, counter-rotating extruder, especially designed for the production of low shear confectionery recipes, like licorice, chewy candy and chewing gum.

The machine consists of a stainless steel base frame, holding the gearbox, the electrical drive, the extruder, the deareation, the tempering, the color and flavor dosing, and the screen changer. The cylinder consists of two components, a cooking zone and a vacuum cooling zone, and is tempered by means of water.
During start up, the extruder is heated electrically. After the temperature set point is reached, the slurry is fed into the extruder for cooking. The internal friction in the pre-mix slurry, caused by the extruder screws, actually generates heat by itself, causing the need for additional electrical energy to drop to 35 - 40 % of the initial value!

The combination of the external energy and the internal friction inside the cylinder makes for a most efficient and effective cooking process, and is the main reason for the superior quality of the end product of a typical Extrufood line.
The barrel can be dismounted and taken away for inspection and maintenance without having to move the extruder out of the line.

The control system is based on a Siemens or optionally an Allan Bradley control unit,. Our extruder is completely wired to a single connection point, which makes for easy and very fast installation.

We have supplied more than 30 cooking extruders to many leading confectionery manufacturers, and always with an excellent result.

Extrufood forming extruders are specially designed for the extrusion of various viscous masses, like:

• Licorice
• Fruit gum
• Fruit snack
• Sugar paste
• Chewy candy
• Chewing gum

These twin screw, co-rotating extruders have a strong and versatile design, to adjust to various masses to be processed. The intermeshing screws are self-wiping, making cleaning an easy job. The infeed section is a twinscrew, counter-rotating design, offering a stable, deareated infeed, resulting in a constant massflow from the extruder.

The extruder is built onto a single base frame, and all parts coming into contact with the product are made of stainless steel. In cases where a multi-colored product is desired, we have two possibilities:

• If the product mass is still mixable, we supply a Diemix®, mixing the mass with color and flavor right after the forming extruder;
• We supply a twin- forming extruder, basically two extruders on the same frame. These then feed into a common forming die, to produce any multi-colored product desired.

Extrufood mixing extruders are specially designed for mixing and extrusion of viscous product masses. Examples are:

• Licorice
• Fruit gum
• Fruit snack
• Sugar paste
• Chewing gum
• Chewy candy

These twin screw, co-rotating extruders have a strong and versatile design, to adjust to various masses to be processed. The intermeshing screws are self-wiping, making cleaning an easy job. The infeed section is as a twin-screw or roller principle, counter-rotating design, offering a stable, deareated infeed, resulting in a constant mass flow from the extruder.

The color and flavor are supplied by the metering system, also mounted onto the base frame. The color and flavor are fed into the infeed section of the mixing extruder. The longer design takes care of an efficient blend of ingredients at the die, usually mounted directly behind the extruder, whilst keeping the speed of the screws, and with that the temperature rise, limited. The extruder is built onto a single base frame, and all parts coming into contact with the product are made of stainless steel.

Extrusion in licorice production
Probably 80% of licorice is produced using the traditional method of cooking (either in batches or continuous), forcing the product through a die, and then often combined with drying steps.

However, all these steps can be combined into one, using cooking extrusion. After mixing, the pre-mix or mass is fed into the cooking extruder, cooking, mixing, de-aerating and extruding the product in a single step. Because the moisture content of the mass is much lower, drying the product after extruding is not necessary. This results in a much better product quality with higher efficiency. Apart from that, cooking extrusion is more hygienic, takes up less floor space, requires less labor, less handling, and is therefore more economical than the traditional process.

Licorice is often combined with a sugar paste to form a product. This is achieved by using a forming extruder to extrude the sugar paste and a cooking extruder for the licorice, with both extruders feeding into a co-extrusion die, where the sugar paste flows are combined with the licorice flows. Over the years Extrufood has gained much experience in twin screw cooking- and forming extruders, both co- and counter rotating. Particularly for the confectionery industry we are specialized in complete systems for extruded licorice, all fully continuous. Apart from forming and cooking extruders, we supply sugar sanding machines, cutting machines, waxing stations and cooling tunnels.